When I was sailing up the Australian Great Barrier Reef, I stripped the gears on the autopilot that steers my yacht.  In my trip around the world, my autopilot steered the yacht for more than thirty thousand miles.  For all of those miles the autopilot performed flawlessly, except when I stripped the gears.

Stripped gears no longer function properly; they slip and make a horrible grinding noise as my sailboat heads off course.  When the gears are stripped, my autopilot is useless.

Stripped gears are like the mental slippage found in depression; your stripped mental gears cause your mental autopilot to breakdown.  You wander of course, and if you aren't careful, you end up on the rocks.

Mental slippage takes two forms.

The first part of mental slippage deals with the control of your thoughts.  You lose control of your thoughts.  Instead of you controlling your thoughts, they control you.  Automatic thoughts get into the driver's seat and take you where you don't want to go - to the Land or Depression.

The second part of mental slippage deals with the content of your thoughts.  Mental slippage allows your mind to fill up with twisted, distorted thoughts called cognitive distortions.

Mental slippage is basically a control and content issue.  Mental slippage means that your mental autopilot is no longer functioning properly.  Your life wanders off course, and you head deeper and deeper into the Land of Depression.  Mental slippage is a real condition, and until you fix it, you won't get better.

Excerpt from :

Zero Tolerance To Negative Thinking : Good-by Depression - Hello Positive Mind

David J Abbott M.D.